Engine "refreshing"

90mustangGT

I felt sorry for girls because
Founding Member
Jan 15, 2002
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Dallas, GA
I am talking about a "rebuild" where you just replace wear items like the rings and berrings reusing the pistons, rods, and crank with the only maching mabe being rehoning the cylinders which can be done at home. The Sept. 04 issue of MMFF had an artical about this. The engine in my car is good, but I do get alot of blowbye and over 150K miles. I want to do a full rebuild but I think I want to start a 351W based stroker in which everything will be replaced (will need much larger H/I. That may be years, so for now, I just want to get the most out of my car and am already starting to plan for this winter. The money I can save will put me closer to a much beefier engine down the road.
 
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You could just hone and replace the rings, but if the cylinders have a ridge at the top, that can kill your new rings. If it didn't then you might get some piston slap. This happened with my brothers 2.3t.

When you rebuild the engine, you should have all the bearings replaced, like the cam bearings, and have the crank polished, put oversize bearings, pistons etc....When your dealing with an engine, you don't really want to do a hack job.....
 
what usually happens is, you decide to do a re ring and bearings, by the time you pull it out, you think gee, might as well do the heads or atleast a valve job, then your thinking while im in the bottom might as well buy a new oil pump, and the next thing you know, your rebuilding the whole thing.
i dunno what it is but those guys in the magazine articles always seem to have good luck low bucking it. i suppose thats because if it blows up no biggie. if you do a refresh just make sure you dont care if it runs and it'll probably last forever.
 
Once you start tearing into it you will want to just do over the whole thing, trust me. You could buy a low mile shortblock and put that together. But once you figure out how much money you are spending it will sorta feel like a waste of time.
 
I think I see the light now. Once you dig that deep might as well do it right. I've heard that many times after all the machining of everything is done, it wouldn't be that much more for new components. I'd love to do a 347 on an upgraded block such as a sportsman or level 10 from DSS. I might do something major this winter. Planning on a second job for some extra money so I can come out next year swinging.
 
Even for a "cheap" rebuild you should get the engine stripped down, cleaned and someone with a good set of micrometer's(sp) to check the clearences...You'll need at least that to get new bearings and rings to fit-seal...

If you have blowby now putting time and money into just replacing stuff might not help much, could be the valves or valve seals wore too...

IMHO there's no such thing as a "cheap" rebuild, by the time you go through all this you might as well do it right...You can save money by doing as much work as you can...Clean everything with kerosene and brushes then take it to be mic'd or checked...Once the blocks prepped you can rebuild it yourself with the help of any good small block Ford rebuild book and some tools...

Run it for another 150k and save for the other engine... :nice:
 
Nicely put pop-pop....

The problem with the 'home' rebuilds is that unless you measure carefully to see what the wear levels are on various components, you're just guessing. A simple home hone job won't remove enough material to, for example, clean up cylinders that have become 'ovaled' over time. If you're gonna rebuild it - find a good machine shop that can clean it, measure things and do any clean up machining that needs to be done. I'm amazed at how reasonable their prices actually are for the work they do.
 
90mustangGT said:
I'd love to do a 347 on an upgraded block such as a sportsman or level 10 from DSS.

Both of those are a waste of money, there not point in tossing upgraded parts into a block thats going to split before the stock parts would have.

Im transplanting my 331 internals into a race block this september. The internals have 2000 miles on them, so im sure the tolerances havnt changed since i built it. The machine shop is going to give the block a once over and ill continue to build it up from there, bearings, rings, gaskets, and oil pump. reusing the hardware.
 
"The internals have 2000 miles on them, so im sure the tolerances havnt changed since i built it."

:) I was thinking that 2000 miles covered by 8000 drag passes, or at the 24 hours of Daytona could change internal tolerances quite a bit!
 
Michael Yount said:
"The internals have 2000 miles on them, so im sure the tolerances havnt changed since i built it."

:) I was thinking that 2000 miles covered by 8000 drag passes, or at the 24 hours of Daytona could change internal tolerances quite a bit!

yea but i opted for the 2000 mile garage queen.( i didnt drive for 2000 miles, just idled)